Forum:30: Final Options
The group, flush from their success at disarming the explosive buried underneath Snezhny, turned their attention towards the next political crisis: freeing their Librennian allies from the Haka, who were beginning to hint at their intent to ransom them back to the party in exchange for their assistance in striking the final blow against the drow nobility. The group, noting a mutual unwillingness between Adama and themselves in using the Librennians as bargaining chips, elected to instead convince the Haka leadership to let them go. The group met three people in the pursuit of this goal: Their erstwhile companion Emil, now advanced to a position of authority within the revolutionary group, the stony general known as Johannes Conrad, and the latter's nephew Eljas Conrad, the legendary archer called "The Black Death" by his peers. Emil relented first, as the group pointed out the precedent of their previous successes together, and he even claimed to think of the others as his friends. General Conrad was a bit of a harder case, as the particular word-smithing and diplomatic legerdemain needed to convince him was achieved majorly through Lin's miraculous insights, and the younger Conrad, only a boy, was swayed much more easily and unexpectedly, owing in part to a possible romantic interest in Lin. The party, on speaking with the half-captive Captain Plunkett of the Sagitta, were also informed that, moments prior to the destruction and crash-landing of the ship, the Captain managed to send a distress signal back to Librem and confirmed its receipt, and that they would expect reinforcement from the Librennian personnel carrier Aldebaran in seven days. He cautioned the party as well that Lexington's mission to retrieve his father was concluded, and that the party would be required as part of their contract to return to Librem on the Aldebaran as well for debriefing, meaning that as of that afternoon, the party would have only seven days to conclude all of their business in Snezhny and return to base. Sleeping for the night, the group was awoken by another emergency message that was taken by Deodin, who then informed the party that Gray Peak was being evacuated due to an order by Detri, ostensibly acting as the highest-ranking officer present. The site had lost contact with their actual commander Kalnov, and Deodin confirmed the order and told the soldiers to escape to a rendezvous point and dig in for an extended wait. He then told the party that his intention was to stop Detri and Kalnov from causing any more damage, and Lexington and the other Dead Dragons agreed to this. The party, wanting to see Detri, Kalnov, and to a lesser extent, Vavilov brought to justice, also agreed, and teleported en masse back to the outskirts of Gray Peak. On entry, they found the base deserted but Vavilov's research wing was sealed off. Detri communicated with them through the mental loudspeaker, informing them that he was in the cooling plant for the site's power generator, and that they should come see him as they "do not have much time." Before doing so, the group found both the elven Piano Jack's phylactery in the form of the maple metronome, and a dead man they confirmed to be General Kalnov. He had died of a self-inflicted gunshot, and Detri claimed that he had simply seen a vision of events to come, and took his own life in response. Artyom was careful to save his uniform, however. The group then went down to power generation, where they were confronted with the sight of Detri wounded and bleeding profusely, his own blood used to make a summoning circle, and Vavilov bound by iron cable and unable to move beyond a leash fashioned by Detri. Detri, in his final moments, told the party that they had made him realize that the greater enemy in the Snezhnian war was the god Genbu, who had apparently given Detri the revelations necessary to create Gray Peak and put the lumenated weapon plans in motion, and thus his final act would be to strike back at Genbu directly using demonic power, as demons would be drawn to the sacrifice of a highly-regarded servant of Genbu. He bid the party farewell, and killed himself with an explosive, triggering the opening of a gate into a demonic mass, which emerged as a bound man covered in eyes, rotting head being scraped away by an eagle made of black flames. Pandemonium Alpha.